Our people

Smruti Sriram and Martina Machado: MBAs, mentors and event organisers

Can you tell us a bit about yourselves?

We are MBA 2018 students from Stream B. Smruti is from the UK and Martina is from Uruguay and Brazil.

Can you tell us about the Back to School Day event, who’s involved and what people can expect?

The inaugural Back to School Day, to be held on 21 January, is about bridging the skills of today and tomorrow. Over one day, six world-class speakers teach life skills they have mastered to top executives and young people in a classroom setting.

The audience is a mixture of young people (14- to 21-year-olds) and senior executives. It is an interesting way for the generations to share their insights. And all proceeds go towards the Wings of Hope Children’s Charity to help support skills training and social enterprises in the UK and to educate children in developing countries.

Hosted by BBC presenter, Babita Sharma, topics and teachers include:

Ten lessons from five British Prime Ministers – Lord Robin Butler, Former Head of the Civil Service

How to ask tough questions – Justin Webb, BBC Radio 4 Presenter and Former Washington Correspondent

How to survive the worst storms – Roz Savage MBE, solo-rower, Yale Professor and Guinness World Record holder

How humans should interact in a world of machines – speaker from Google DeepMind

There will also be music by DJ AJ King.

Where did the idea for ‘Back to School Day’ come from? What inspired you?

Back To School Day is an initiative of the Wings of Hope, inspired by MBA students of London Business School.

The journey back into the classroom for us has been a special one. The classroom is a safe space to think openly, and to learn freely. We loved the interactive classes with our world-renowned professors. And we wanted to take this concept to a wider audience to bridge the gap that exists between senior executives and young people.

With a major focus on life skills, the carefully created day is designed to be a fun retreat from the office. Life skills apply to everyone, whether you’re an exec fighting a boardroom battle, or managing a crisis at home, or trying to make your way in the world as a young person.

What's your highlight from LBS so far?

Bonding with our amazing Stream B, and mentoring students in the Wings of Hope Achievement Awards.

If you had the power to solve one and only one problem in the world, what would it be and why?

Education for all.

Tell us something surprising about you?

We both love working out at Barry’s Bootcamp.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

When taking the elevator up, remember to send it down, for someone else. Also, you are never too busy, we all have 24 hours in a day – if the Prime Minister can do it, so can you.